


Soldier's Eyes

by onotherflights



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Assassins & Hitmen, Blood, Enemies to Lovers, M/M, Multi, Organized Crime, Sexual Tension, Snipers, Violence, Weapons
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-17
Updated: 2018-09-04
Packaged: 2018-11-01 18:43:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 8,735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10927758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onotherflights/pseuds/onotherflights
Summary: If you asked certain people who claimed they ought to know, Otabek Altin was the devil in human form. He’d been the leader of the largest organized crime network in the country, and for some reason no one had the right sniper behind a gun that could manage to kill him.Yuri Plisetsky was going to be the one to do it, he was sure of it.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This was inspired by "soldier's eyes" by Jack Savoretti and the person who asked for it was probably expecting an actual war au. lol. 
> 
> If anyone in this fandom knows about Jim x Sebastian (mormor) from the sherlock fandom, this is basically a crossover of what they could have been if bbc hadn't fucked us all over. But i'm not bitter about it. Anyways, blonde Russian tiger and short daddy boss... i couldn't resist the fun. enjoy!

  
  


If you asked certain people who claimed they ought to know, Otabek Altin was the devil in human form. He’d been the leader of the largest organized crime network in the country, the spider at the center of the web, since he was 20 years old, and for some reason no one had the right gun, or the right sniper  _ behind _ the gun, that could manage to kill him. 

Yuri Plisetsky was going to be the one to do it, he was sure of it. 

It wasn't a motivation to cure the world of this alleged monster that motivated Yuri to seek out jobs that would lead to a mark on the Boss’ head. 

He just really needed the money. 

When Yuri found himself in Spain for a job one swelteringly hot summer, Altin was the last thing on his mind. When he was lucky enough to get a mark, even though the end pay would be ridiculous with all he still owed to Nikiforov, Yuri was focused. He didn't get to be the best sniper in Russia by fucking around when there was cash on the table. 

Everything was going to plan. He had set up the night before and camped out, waiting patiently for his mark to move into place. It was a pretty typical case, his rich client needed someone out of their way, and what better way to do that than in a foreign country, where the details could be blurred? 

Yuri felt his pulse quicken as the target moved into range. He fixed his eyes, hyperfocused. Headshot, that's what he was supposed to do. 

So, he did. 

Seeing a body crumple to the ground with what was left of their head in tact was nothing new. It was what came after that caught Yuri off his guard for the first time since his training began when he was eleven. 

He’d hit his intended target alright, and as expected the others in the courtyard began to panic. Even his client who'd paid for the hit did a convincing acting job, holding his wife’s hand as they stood from their table and fled to the exit. 

What Yuri didn't expect was for other shots to be heard, and all of a sudden there was more blood, and more bodies, than he had accounted for. He filled with rage, watching his client’s wife clutching tearfully to his dead body, shot straight through the heart. How the fuck was he going to be paid now? And who would explain this shit to Nikiforov? 

Before he could move his camp, three snipers, gear far superior to his own, encircled him. He was smart enough to know that now was not the time to ask stupid questions like “what is going on?” Or “who do you work for?”. Instead he stayed silent, standing with his feet firmly planted and his hands behind his back. If it came to someone physically trying to grab him, he had the power of his legs and his stature as an advantage. 

“So you're the Russian Ice Tiger?” 

He heard him before he saw him, his voice low and clear above the faint sounds of crying in the courtyard below. 

He heard his footsteps next, and two of the snipers moved aside to make room for him, the Boss. 

Otabek Altin was shorter than he expected. 

It usually went that way, so he should have known. People who make a living on the death of others usually have some physical aspect that makes their profession seem mismatched. He had jet black hair, slicked back with oil, and a crisp suit. His shoes did not have a splatter of blood, despite the carnage that surrounded them. He was tanned, handsome features. 

He didn't look like a spider, just a man. 

He was somebody’s son, after all. 

The curtain was lifted, and Yuri wanted to kill him more than ever before, if only to redeem this failure. How the hell had three snipers moved into the area without him scouting them? 

“He asked you a question, princess.” The single sniper that stood to the right of Altin, who had the same haircut as his boss, mocked. Yuri narrowed his eyes, and he didn't miss the way Altin looked back briefly at his right hand man with the same expression. The two gunmen to the left of the Boss stayed dutifully silent, heads bowed and looking to the ground. 

“Yeah, I'm Yuri Plisetsky, what's it to you, Altin?” Yuri addressed him directly. He wasn't afraid, it was hard to be afraid of someone you had every intention to kill, or die trying. It seemed that ultimatum was coming faster than he had planned, and he only hoped his training would enable him to survive this so he could get paid for it. Otherwise, what was the point of it all? 

“It's an honor to meet you, Yuri. I have an immense amount of respect for you. We’re similar, you know.” 

Otabek is standing so comfortably, his hands in the pockets of his trousers. His face is neutral, almost expressionless. His tone makes it hard for Yuri to decipher his true intention, and it's driving Yuri insane. He hates people he can't read at face value, it's usually so simple. 

Altin takes a step closer, and Yuri keeps his eyes trained on his hands. If they move from his pockets, Yuri will fight. The other option was never an option. 

“You must not know much about me then, because I'm nothing like you, asshole.” 

That was a big, really huge mistake. Yuri knows it as soon as it leaves his mouth. What he doesn't know is how fast Altin’s right hand man can move. There's a punch to his gut that makes him keel over, and before he knows it the hands behind his back are restrained, his feet pinned down. Altin’s gunman is pressed against his back, reining him in. If he tries to make a defensive move at this point, he's pretty sure he'll end up fifty feet below in the courtyard, his blood and brain matter splattering the Spanish tiles. He decides not to fight, not yet. But he still had his mouth to fight with. Only, as he looks up, he hesitates. 

Altin is holding a knife.

It's a beautiful weapon, really. The cherry wood handle is dark and intricately carved, some of it finer details hidden from view. The blade is made of fine steel, and it moves too fast for Yuri to read the inspection carved into its side. 

Yuri thinks the knife is beautiful, even as Altin steps forward once more and pressed the tip of his to his cheek. 

“Russia hasn't been a problem for a long time, you know.” Altin says calmly, ever as cool. “Then you came along.” 

When he says it, it's the first time Yuri sees any sort of reaction in him. His lip curves up, almost in a smirk. 

_ I'm going to shoot that smirk right off.  _

Yuri keeps his rage channeled inward, and Altin continues. 

“I've been watching you for a while now. Such talent for someone so young. You’re fresh, and yet you're the best sniper the black market can buy, not like some of the trash you trained with. And you're such a pretty little killer too.” 

The blade shifts, the flat side of it tracing down his cheek, following the line of his jaw bone. 

“You have something very special in your eyes. I've seen it after you've made a mark. It's not what I've seen so many times before. You haven't been broken by the horror show. You don't have death in your eyes, or fear. Only light. A soldier’s eyes.” 

For a moment, Yuri breathes out, thinking the blade is moving away from him. Then it presses to his throat, his head being held back by the man behind him. He can feel hot breath against the back of his neck, and his own heart speeding up. How embarrassing. 

“Like I said, I admire you. Unfortunately, I can't allow you to continue. Competition is bad for business. You're a liability to everything I've built, Yuri.” 

This close, Yuri can see the hints of gold speckled within the rich brown of Altin’s eyes.

“Give me one good reason I shouldn't slit your throat and eliminate that problem?” 

Yuri blinks twice.

“You'd get blood on your designer shoes.” 

The smirk appears again, more apparent now, but the blade presses in, about to break skin. This might be the most fun Yuri’s had in years. If it's what kills him, so be it. 

“If you're planning on killing me, go ahead. You'll be saving yourself in the end. I've been trained to kill you since I was a child, I've just been waiting on the right offer.” 

The smirk disappears instantly, but appears on Yuri’s face. The game is addicting. 

“So it's money that motivates you?” 

“Isn't that the case for all of us?” 

It certainly was the case for Yuri’s client from earlier, and look where he was now. If this situation with Altin didn't move faster, Yuri would still be there to watch the paramedics bag up his client and the mark he'd been paid to kill. 

“What if I told you there was a way you wouldn't have to worry about such things? If you had everything you ever wanted, in exchange for keeping one person alive, would you still be the best sniper in the world?” 

Yuri furrowed his eyebrows. “And who would that be? You?” 

“Yes.” 

The sound of Yuri’s laughter filled the silence of the courtyard, bouncing off the blood soaked tiles. The knife presses harder, breaking skin. Yuri feels the warm blood blooming against the goosebumps on his skin. He's a live wire. 

“You have two choices, tiger.” Altin warns, his voice growing lower. It's turning Yuri on. 

Yuri looks around, assessing his situation. The way he's being held, there's no escape or fight that wouldn't result in either a severed aorta or a quick drop to the floor below. Otabek is staring at him, analyzing every move he makes. 

He doesn't trust this guy, everything he's been trained to do his whole life goes against it. Does he really want to be another hired gun serving under some boss, waiting for him to get knocked off by the next one? If he's been compromised like this, Nikiforov may already be dead. He could be a free agent, do whatever he wanted. However, if he tried, he might find himself being the mark in order to eliminate competition sooner than later. There was no way Altin was stupid enough to let him get away. There was no way he would survive three months without someone protecting him. 

Dying seemed like an interesting option. He'd lived a fucked up life for the last twenty one years, hadn't he done his time? Maybe he could get reincarnated as a big cat or something, and he could kill mercilessly. Still, Altin was looking at him, and there was a strange hope in his eyes. Maybe he should stay alive, if only to see where this went. He kind of liked the idea of a man pressing a knife to his throat, practically begging to have him. Yuri could take pity on him if it meant he could see the promise in those dead eyes again. 

“Fine.” 

The pressure of the blade immediately leaves his neck, and he whines at the loss. Otabek smirks, pink tongue poking out between his lips to gather the red from each side. “Good answer, tiger.” 

He looks up and nods at the man holding Yuri, and the hold is released. Yuri relaxes, his arms falling to his sides. 

Otabek looks down at him as if he's taller as he puts his knife away, in his pocket. 

“You'll die for me, Yuri?” He asks softly. 

Yuri tries to imagine the others, the snipers who currently surround him. They're better than him, even he can admit that. Maybe not as good of shots, but they're highly trained. They're good enough to have kept this asshole alive for years. He imagines how they found themselves in the same situation. Did they have a choice either? 

“No,” he answers, and that seems to surprise them. One of the left hand snipers looks up briefly, as if to see the expression on her boss’ face. It hasn't moved. “I'll live for you.” 

Otabek doesn't react, just looks up at his right-hand and nods again as he steps back. Yuri steps forward, and all of a sudden there's a sharp pain in the other side of his neck, and all at once the edges are blurred. 

“You didn't think it would be that easy, did you princess?” Is the hot breath in his ear, and he's feeling nauseous. 

He's stumbling, his legs suddenly feeling useless. He's trying to fight it, but brown eyes are all he can see. He feels the gravity leave his body as he falls forward, falling right into the arms of the devil. 

Then everything goes black. 

  
  



	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just finished writing a series that means everything to me, so why not follow it by continuing this forgotten pile of trash? Thankfully it's not as bad as it could have been because [@Badaltin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/badaltin/pseuds/badaltin)is my beta now. He will come to regret that decision in time.

Yuri woke up on the softest silk he’d ever felt. 

He opened his eyes and noticed immediately how heavy they felt, along with his limbs. His body felt weighted down with lead. He needed to move, needed to map his surroundings, needed to. . . not fall back to sleep. 

He forced himself to sit up, groaning as he put his head in his hands. That was when he saw him. 

Otabek was sitting on a settee by the large bay window, lounging really. He had a mug on the table beside him, and a book in his hands. 

_ Grimm’s fairy tales _ .

Yuri watched him for a moment, how completely still he was. He looked so content, more like a college student than a crime lord. Yuri watched his long fingers flip a page of the book, the curve of his hand. He imagined that same hand around someone’s throat. He imagined it around his own. 

He shifted in silence, and looked down to see that he was naked except for a thin pair of black briefs. An unsettling feeling set in his stomach, and he decided to speak up, finally breaking the silence between them. 

“Did you fuck me or something?” 

Otabek didn’t look up from his reading, but he did reply smoothly.

“Sorry love, necrophilia isn’t my kink,” he murmured, sounded bored, “and you’ve been nothing more than a breathing corpse for the past twelve hours.” 

He huffed through his nose. Figures they would drug him. If things went sour and he tried anything, he had no idea of what his surroundings were or how he could escape. 

“What happened to my clothes, my gear?” 

Yuri ached with nervous energy because  _ where the fuck was his gun _ . 

“My right hand took care of that before departure. We couldn’t have you wearing a tracking device, much less another man’s emblem on your piece.” 

Yuri smirked, “Yeah, I bet you want to see my piece.” 

Again, he didn’t even get a look. 

“You don’t need your tongue to be a shooter, you know. Don’t make me take it away.”

Yuri slipped out of the bed and took a moment to ensure his legs were steady before he strode across the room. He took the book out of Otabek’s hands and set it aside, easily straddling his lap. He put his arms around the shorter man’s neck and narrowed his eyes. He was still a little high, so he figured it would work. Seducing men was a useful skill. It made them even easier to kill. 

“You may find you could be fond of my tongue, Altin,” he whispered in his best sultry tone, tracing his finger down his neck. His crisp white button-down was three times undone, and Yuri traced his collarbone, looking up at him through pale lashes. “Do you want me to show you how?”

Otabek looked stoic, cold and still as marble. Yuri shifted in his lap. He wasn’t hard, so it wasn’t working.

“You sound like a child,” he responded, “I’d have thought they would have taught you better. You’re too slow when it’s intimate.” 

As if to prove a point, Otabek put him on his back. He was pinned to the settee in a single second, legs pinned by Otabek’s knees and his hands gripped by their wrists in one hand. Otabek’s other hand was around his throat. Not pressing in, just there. A warning. 

“They taught you to kill from a safe distance, but what about now? I could snap your neck right here. I wouldn’t need a weapon, I could kill you with one hand. It wouldn’t even make a mess.”

His grip constricted testingly, his thumb pressing against the Adam’s apple along the pale column of his delicate neck. Yuri let his lips fall open in a soft shape, and he wondered what his eyes looked like as Otabek watched them dilate. 

“Do you still want to kill me, Yuri?” he questioned, his tone dropping from steel to silk, softer than his sheets. “Or do you want to fuck me?” 

He’d dropped low, his body pressing into every inch of Yuri’s. He was so close that Yuri could feel the heat of his breath, the artificially sweet scent of it. 

“I know, it’s hard to tell the difference. The line between the two is so fine. Right, tiger?  _ La petite mort. _ ” 

Yuri watched the way his tongue hit his teeth, curved around shape of the letters.

There was faint line on the porcelain surface of Yuri’s cheek where Otabek’s blade had dug into him. Otabek dipped lower and traced the line with the tip of his wicked tongue, as if he could taste Yuri’s blood a second time over. Then he was in his ear, whispering low and sweet like a lover. Yuri noticed his own back was arched. His spine was curved like a cat’s, his body pulled by an invisible thread that drew him closer and closer to Altin, to  _ Otabek _ . He held his breath, waiting to hear what he would say. 

“I know your game, Plisetsky.” 

Then the thread snapped.

Otabek released his hold and was off of Yuri and the settee in an instant. He straightened his shirt, a smirk playing on his lips. Yuri had fallen back against the cushion, flushed peach. Otabek wasn’t quite so affected. He was back to steel and marble as if the softness in his features, the warmth he exuded, had vanished completely. 

“You’re going to have to work a lot harder if you think a few bats of your eyelashes and a cock between your legs is going to get you anywhere.” 

Yuri sat up suddenly, indignant. He pulled a blanket over his lap, his eyes alight. Still, despite the anger rising up, he couldn’t form words. Otabek was walking away in long strides across the room until he paused in the doorway and looked back at Yuri over his shoulder. 

“Get dressed. You’re already late to your first day of training.”

He shut the door behind him, just as Yuri sent the book flying. It hit the back of the door with a thunk and dropped to the floor. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> find me on [Tumblr](http://onotherflights.tumblr.com/) if you wanna.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks @badaltin (Elliott) again for a quick edit, u rock.

Yuri had always learned by landing on his feet. 

When he had held a gun for the first time, he was only eleven years old. By the time he was fifteen, he could outshoot people who were ten, twenty years his senior. He knew how to hide, and he knew how to focus on a target. The world could be falling down in flames around him, and he would still hit his mark. For most of his life, it was kill or be killed. So he learned damn well how to kill. 

Since his training with Altin’s group began, they had him shoot for points with a handgun. Each morning it was the same shit, and that day was no different. 

He walked away, stepping over the shell casings, before the paper silhouette even came back from where it had been positioned ten yards away. He knew what it would show. Ten headshots in a perfect circle of bullet holes. 

“Holy shit,” one of the grunts murmured, catching the gun where he’d thrown it down and locking the safety. 

It didn’t take Yuri long to figure out the hierarchy that Otabek had built around himself. Yuri had been training pointlessly for a week, and he was growing antsy. He didn’t know why Altin had him in the nursery with the expendables, except maybe to instill fear in them. He had been passed down through twelve ‘superiors’ during his training, and only one of them had ever seen Otabek in person. It was Jean, the lap dog who’d drugged him. He’d collected Yuri from the house and transported him to the training grounds that first day. Since then, Yuri had seen only him and none of Altin. It was a bittersweet disappointment. Sometimes he would catch sight of his hair and want to rip his flipping stomach right from his skin, but then he saw it was only Jean and he calmed. 

After a meaningless target practice, he went down to the gym for a workout. He was in the middle of a rep of box jumps when the very devil he’d thought of walked in, and not the one he wanted to see. 

“What do you want?” 

“You,” Jean answered smoothly, arms crossed over his chest as he stood in front of him. 

Yuri jumped up, if only to stand on the box and have the height advantage. He was slick with sweat down his bare chest and looked down at Jean inquisitively. 

“More specifically your ass,” he continued, nodding over to the door, “in the rover. The boss requires your presence, princess.” 

Sometimes when Yuri couldn’t sleep at night, he let his mind wander. Some of his thoughts were about what he would do Otabek. Some of them were about what he would do to Jean, especially when he called him  _ that _ . The two thoughts ended with such vastly different results. Then again, Otabek had been right. It was hard to tell the difference sometimes. 

Yuri pushed past Jean without a word. He changed clothes and met him outside where he was waiting patiently, leaning against the black range rover and holding something out to him. 

As he got closer, he realized it was a blindfold. 

“Isn’t this a bit useless by now?” he mumbled as he grabbed the piece of cloth. They got into the car, and JJ waited. 

“Would you like me to put it on you?” 

“Get fucked,” Yuri spit out even as he resigned to tying it behind his head. 

“Not as of late,” Jean murmured under his breath, and the car started to move. 

Yuri had kept track of the minutes, and confirmed the turns he’d gone over and over in his mind. He doubted it was Altin’s only residence, and he still didn’t know exactly what country they were in, but he could have found the house blindfolded. 

He slipped the black piece of fabric down to hang around his neck and trudged into the house in stride with Jean. 

“What does he want with me?” Yuri asked as they approached the golden elevators. They led up to his office, and the bedroom where Yuri had woken up in on the first day. He suspected it was Altin’s bed, but that was a whole other jar of worms he couldn’t open until he was alone. 

Jean looked at him with a smirk, as if he was in on a joke Yuri hadn’t heard the punchline of. “Is it your birthday?”

“No.” Yuri didn’t even know his real birthday, what kind of dumbass question was that?

“Well, he’s feeling generous enough for gifts regardless.” 

Before Yuri could ask questions, the doors opened and they were delivered into a sleek office. They walked past the small network of hackers that were the heartbeat of the operation with ease. At a large door, Jean pressed his thumbprint into a keypad and they walked inside. Yuri didn’t have thumbprint access, but he intended to get it, one way or another. He’d bet Otabek looked good with a few fingers in his mouth, too. 

 

The devil of the hour sat at his desk, intensely focused on the screen in front of him. He didn’t acknowledge them, and they stood there for a long while in silence. Yuri started to get aggravated, and looked over to Jean. He didn’t look at Yuri, but obediently ahead, eyes on the boss. Yuri scoffed inwardly. Jean might as well be kneeling. 

Finally, the moment Yuri considered doing something rash to get attention, dark brown eyes roamed up to meet his. Then he looked away from Yuri much too soon, a tease of attention. 

“How is his training going?” 

“It’s unnecessary,” Yuri spoke up before Jean could do it for him. He got a glare back, but Yuri ignored it and stepped forward. 

“You know exactly what I’m capable of, all I’m doing there is intimidating the gr-“

Before he could finish his sentence, Yuri watched as Otabek’s expression remained completely neutral and he threw a knife at Yuri’s face. 

Jean caught the switchblade easily between his fingers and closed it, stepping forward to put it back on Otabek’s desk. Then he stepped back, standing beside Yuri, who was remembering how breathing worked. It wasn’t the first time he’d gotten a blade thrown at him, but usually he saw it coming. 

His eyes flitted up to Jean for a brief moment. He wasn’t used to being saved, and he didn’t know if he liked it. 

“Still unnecessary?” 

He looked back to Otabek when he spoke, his eyes narrowed. 

“It’s not your fault, tiger. Clearly Jean has been incompetent in your training.” 

His eyes went back to Jean, if only to watch his subtle deflation. His shoulders were just slightly less stiff, his eyes just slightly less bright. 

“Surely he will not disappoint me again. You have your first assignment in a week.”

It didn’t need to be said, because Yuri could hear it loud and clear in Otabek’s tone. If he didn’t succeed on his first mission, it would be Jean who recieved punishment. Fair treatment only existed in fairy tales. 

Otabek pulled out a long, mahogany box and opened the lid. The Inside was lined with plush green velvet, hollowed spaces with glinting silver blades in them, except for one. He replaced the blade he’d thrown at Yuri, and then beckoned him forward. 

“Is this my gift?” he questioned, closing the distance between them. 

Otabek gave a clipped nod, “Pick any one you like.”

Jean couldn’t see the selection from where he was standing back, his body turned like he was already prepared to leave. 

Yuri looked at each of the thirteen blades, each slick and elegant, each with subtle differences. He looked at the simple switchblade Otabek had sent his way and allowed his fingers to gently trace up and down the handle of the blade, stroking. He looked up at Otabek with a coy expression. He tracked brown eyes, the curve of his lip as it turned up into a smirk. 

Eventually Yuri moved away and selected a thin clip point, his finger tracing the curve and pressing against the pointed end when he held it up to the light. 

Satisfied, Otabek took the box and Yuri slipped the knife into his belt. 

“I’ll see you again in a week,” he told Yuri, and then looked back to Jean with a look as sharp as Yuri’s new weapon. It was unspoken, but clear.  _ Don’t fuck it up _ . 

He went back to his work, and Yuri followed Jean out of the office. He didn’t look at him, and didn’t speak as they made their way back to the car. It was a painfully silent ride in the elevator, just the sound of their steps in the grass as they walked down to the rover. When Jean handed him the blindfold again, he couldn’t take it anymore. 

It was clear that Jean was one of the few that were in the inner circle, the innermost threads of the web. If he was so close, why did Otabek hate him so much? Why was it that Yuri could get away with blatant disrespect, have fun with it even, and Jean was treated like dirt? 

Yuri had seen him shoot, he wasn’t that bad. He was a hell of a lot faster, fast enough to catch a blade that could have taken out Yuri’s left eye. Even Yuri could admit that. 

“What the fuck did you do to him?” he demanded as moved in front of him, blocking the driver’s side door. He looked at Jean then, and saw an expression in his eyes he was only used to seeing in the eyes of people who were bleeding out. Regret. 

Jean answered low and gritted, shoving Yuri out of his way by the shoulder and closing the door roughly behind him, leaving him to get in the car on his own. 

“I fell in love with him.” 

  
  
  
  
  



	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw: mention of pedophilia, as well as the blood and violence you signed up for bc this is an assassin au
> 
> If you would like to support this fic, check out [this awesome moodboard](http://onotherflights.tumblr.com/post/175895553912/badaltin-moodboard-for-onotherflightss-otayuri) made by my pal/beta reader @badaltin!

  
  
  


_ Bring home the bacon _ . 

Yuri rolled his eyes as he wiped the sweat and blood from his brow. He let the phone fall beside him on the bed, his breaths heaving as he stared up at the ceiling. 

It was the first he’d heard from Otabek in nearly a week. In fact, it was the first time he’d heard from anyone. Yuri wasn’t used to long missions, especially ones that required him to be so up close and personal. 

He turned his head and stared at the man lying next to him, the one he’d just killed. His blood was on Yuri’s shirt, and is was soaking into the mattress beneath them, blooming out like rose petals. The man laying next to him had done horrible things —  unspeakable things. His family wouldn’t miss him - least of all his daughter. Yuri thought of her in the pictures he’d seen as he’d been led upstairs by the hand.  _ You look just like my honey,  _ he had told Yuri when he pushed him down on the bed, filthy hands spreading his knees apart. Yuri enjoyed killing him after that, savored the way his knife cut into thick skin like it was cake. 

Yuri wished they would know that after all the fear and pain this animal caused, he’d died screaming. Well, until the blade cut through his vocal chords, that is. 

Yuri sat up on the bed and brushed a hand back through his hair, streaking the gold with blood. He stood up on steady legs and walked over to his bag, finding the polaroid camera stashed in with his makeup. He pulled it out and walked back around to the side of the bed, and took a picture.

While he waited for it to develop, he texted Jean the code to the house. They had about an hour before the local authorities would arrive, the same ones whose paychecks could be traced like the thinnest silk back to the center of the web. Otabek owned them, so it would all end just as quietly as it had started. No one had seen the man leading Yuri into the house, and the security cameras had conveniently been malfunctioning since the night before. 

Yuri was a part of the web now. 

He hadn’t understood what Otabek had meant when he’d talked about killing someone up close. He hadn’t understood until he’d had a man blindfolded and tied to a bed underneath him, and he’d pulled out his weapon, seeing his own reflection shining back at him in the face of the blade. 

“Sick fuck,” Yuri murmured, looking at the faded image between his fingers as it began to gain color.

He heard the back door unlock downstairs, followed by the consistent beat of feet moving together as uniform as soldiers. 

Five men entered the bedroom, and no one blinked twice that there was a man tied to the bed with his throat slit. 

Jean crossed the room and went over to him immediately. 

“You look like someone’s dad,” Yuri told him, sneering at his outfit. He had a polo shirt on, for fuck’s sake. 

“And you look like a cheap whore,” Jean smirked in reply, making Yuri laugh at a crime scene. Jean had a duffle bag with him and set it down, pulling out makeup wipes first. Yuri let him wipe his face clean, his movements gentle over Yuri’s eyes, over his mouth. It was impossible to tell if the red that colored the sheet was lipstick or blood. 

They had to keep up appearances in the work they did. Yuri hadn’t known that working for Otabek would entail a burgeoning acting career. Then again, he didn’t really expect anything in life. As Jean cleaned him up and he stripped out of his blood-soaked clothes, he watched the four men that were on cleanup duty. When they were gone, there would be no trace that Yuri had ever been here. It was like he didn’t exist, wasn’t alive to anyone except Otabek. 

“I’ll take you home,” Jean murmured as he turned away, reminding Yuri he was still there. Yuri rolled his eyes again. He’d been on three missions and Jean did the same thing every time. He’d seen Yuri kill with his bare hands, but he couldn’t look at him naked. It was all a part of the history that he hadn’t been apart of, the other web that Yuri couldn’t even begin to untangle. Otabek was at the center of them all. 

_ I fell in love with him. _

Yuri hadn’t asked him any questions about it, and Jean hadn’t brought it up. They didn’t talk much between missions. When he was gone, Yuri had no idea where Otabek sent him. Somehow, he was always right there whenever Yuri was done and needed a quick escape. It was all a well oiled machine, just as Otabek had intended. Yuri just wished he would stop getting all the mess work. He missed his guns. 

Once he was changed he followed Jean downstairs without looking back. It was just another job. It ended when Jean opened the door of the rover and Yuri climbed into the backseat. They didn’t need to talk about it. 

Yuri didn’t get the blindfold anymore, but he didn’t have the fingerprint access to Otabek’s office. Jean was still the only one who did, at least the only one that Yuri saw. Even still, he only unlocked the door and let Yuri walk in alone. He waited on the other side of the door like a guard with his hands folded respectfully behind his back. 

It wasn’t like Otabek ever called him in anyway. 

He wasn’t at his desk when Yuri closed the door softly behind him. He was hiding, and Yuri went looking for him. He found him behind a bookcase, sitting in his armchair. He liked to read books about worlds even more beautiful and devastating than their own. 

Yuri sat down in the chair across from him and took out the polaroid from earlier. All of the colors had bled into the full image, and it wasn’t pretty. 

“I have your bacon, darling,” Yuri drawled out, sticky sweet. It was so picturesque, the two of them sitting by the fire. Maybe in another world, it would mean something different, but that just wasn’t who they were. It would have been so  _ boring _ that way. 

He wasn’t acknowledged other than the gentle curve of fingers reaching out, waiting. Yuri placed the picture in his hand. He lifted it and looked at it briefly, then up to Yuri. He had something like pride in his eyes, something like lust.  _ Pretty little killer _ , Otabek had called him when they met. There was something ugly between them, an animalistic desire. They kept it on a leash. 

Otabek gave him a subtle nod, emotionless, and placed the polaroid between the pages of what he was reading. In their world, a dead man was only a bookmark. 

Yuri sighed, annoyed he wasn’t getting more attention. It wasn’t like he expected a pat on the head or for Otabek to display pictures of his kills on the refrigerator door, but he was sick of not knowing what he was doing. When he’d been captured more or less against his will, Yuri had expected he would be a body shield. He thought he’d be in immediate danger every day of his life, wake from his nightmares to the sweet press of the barrel of a gun to his temple. 

Instead, Otabek ran his entire empire from one room. He was safe in his glass house, and the one person who had access to him would rather pine on the other side of the door than confront him. That wasn’t Yuri.

He walked over and sat on the arm of the chair and threw his legs over Otabek’s lap. 

“Look Altin,” he started, “as much as I would love to take out every pedophile you can find, I thought I’d be doing something a little more my speed.”

He didn’t get a reaction, but he could tell in the subtle shift of his eyes that he was no longer reading. Satisfied to have his attention, Yuri shifted from the arm of the chair directly onto Otabek’s thighs. He moved strategically, his eyes pleading. He was acting again. In their short time together, Otabek had already taught him so much. 

He traced Otabek’s hairline with his fingers, his voice going soft and quiet as he whispered, “I thought there would be more people trying to kill you.” 

He didn’t even shiver, and it was infuriating. 

“Sorry to disappoint you,” he replied smoothly, “but you’d be surprised to know that the number of people who want me dead is limited to this chair.” 

Yuri pouted slightly and let his fingertips travel down Otabek’s neck over pulse point. It was as steady as ever. 

“Not even your lapdog?” he mused aloud, nodding over to the door where Jean waited patiently on the opposite side, invisible to them. “It seems like there’s hard feelings between you two.” 

It wasn’t a question, and Otabek didn’t justify it with an answer. He just looked at Yuri, the look in his eyes twisting. He almost looked defensive. 

“He’s not my lapdog,” he said firmly instead, “he’s the most loyal man I’ve ever known.” 

Yuri raised a brow slightly, challenging the thought. 

“A dog that has been beaten always comes back for food, right?” 

Otabek looked back down to his book, but made no move to push Yuri away. At least not physically. Mentally, the shields were back up and no one had the code to them.

“He’s not the one on my lap now begging for more, now is he?” 

He might as well be on the other side of the door.

“Take a bath and wash the blood out of your hair before you come back asking for more.”

There was only dismissal in his tone, and Yuri knew better than to push any further. He didn’t want to find out if Otabek really was the kind of boss who beat his dogs. Yuri was one of them, whether he liked it or not. 

With a sigh, Yuri slowly let the curves of his frame leave Otabek’s, and he walked out of the office without a word. 

Jean was waiting for him, loyal and patient as Otabek said he was. They walked in silence back to the car as they did every time before. 

If Jean was surprised when Yuri blocked the driver’s side door again, he didn’t show it. 

“What’s wrong now, princess?” 

Yuri ground his teeth, but it was easy to slip on a new face. It was the same expression Yuri wore when he’d crawled on top of that man, clammy hands running down his thighs. His face glowed a flushed pink, all doe eyes and pursed pink lips. Of course, that man had no idea Yuri had a knife behind his back. 

Yuri put on the same face for Jean, stepping close until he was back up against the door. His fingers went up to brush against the short hair along the nape of his neck, wandering around to the pulse point before dipping to trace along the collarbone. His heart rate wasn’t steady the way that Otabek’s had been. It was racing. He’d been trained to keep his face neutral, but his heart betrayed him. What a sucker. 

“Where does he let you sleep, Jean?” He wondered aloud breathily, “will you show me?”

Jean shivered just for him, a shuddering breath.

Sometimes it was so easy he almost felt bad about it.

_ Almost.  _

 


	5. Chapter 5

Jean’s hands were softer than they ought to be. 

They anchored themselves into gold-spun hair, cupped his jaw bone like they were incapable of breaking it. Jean let his hands run up and down Yuri’s back, his chest, but never below his waist. 

He didn’t touch him where Yuri wanted him to. He didn’t touch him in the  _ way  _ Yuri wanted him to, either. He was gentle, reverent. His breath whispered gratitude when they kissed, staining his tongue with a feeling that was foreign to him. 

It was hard to pretend it was Otabek, even with his eyes closed. 

Jean tasted like the cinnamon gum he chewed to curve his cigarette craving. Yuri had never see him smoke, but he knew the tell-tale twitch in his fingers. Sometimes when they slept in his bed, JJ would do it unconsciously in his sleep, a staccato beat of his fingers tapping against Yuri’s ribcage like a rabbit’s foot. 

Jean put a muzzle on the grunts; he didn’t want rumors about them to distract from training. Otabek had a fucking assassin academy going and they were prey to gossip like any other institution. People with nothing better to do because Otabek hadn’t let them have their first taste of blood. They seethed at Yuri when they thought he couldn’t see, ugly jealousy. It wasn’t fair that he had moved up so fast, that he was so close to the beta of the pack. Yuri thought they were stupid for not realizing it sooner, that Jean was the key. 

Just the key. 

That was what he told himself when he lay under JJ, their foreheads  and hips pressed together. 

“I want you,” he whispered, “to fuck me. I know you want to.” 

Yuri would never beg for it, but he’d hoped Jean would give in. He’d hoped maybe it was the right day - 

“No,” he said firmly. He parted, detached from Yuri. Flew to sit at the foot of the bed, putting space between them. 

Yuri gave a frustrated groan because he knew they were almost out of time. Jean would be leaving for a mission. It was time for him to clean up someone else’s mess other than Yuri’s for once. He would be gone for weeks, and Yuri still hadn’t gotten what he wanted. 

It was a long time before Jean answered the question Yuri hadn’t asked. 

“You don’t want me,” he said, and his voice was as soft as his hands felt. “You’re just manipulating the fact that I’m lonely and you’re bored.” 

Yuri sighed, reaching out to touch Jean’s back with his right foot. 

“At least we can be honest with each other.” 

  
  


Yuri finally got his release about a week after Jean left, when Otabek called him in for a meeting. 

He rode the elevator up alone and wondered how he would get into the office without the key. If the man with the key has the power, then Jean was the only one who still held some level of power over Otabek. Yuri wondered when he would creep into Otabek’s consciousness enough to gain some level of power. He didn’t have to find out because a nameless assistant in a white pencil skirt led him to a hallway he’d never seen before. She stood in the archway, motioning for him to go on without her. 

“Which door?” He asked, gazing down the dim-lit corridor and seeing there were many. 

“Figure it out,” she gave a slight shrug, then turned on her heels and left him there. 

He sighed, patiently going to each door. They each had a camera in the peephole, facing out so that no one in the hall could look in and see anything but the abyss. Yuri had seen enough of that to know better than to ask any questions. 

When he got to the right door, he heard an electric buzz, the sound of an intricate mechanical lock coming undone from the inside. 

The room was open and familiar, the circular bed he’d slept on that first night that had to softest silk sheets. It was untouched, sitting in the middle of the room perfectly made. Yuri could see the large windows across, the settee underneath where he’d been pinned under Otabek. 

The only thing that was missing from the memories was the man himself. 

He greeted Yuri by pressing a gun to the small of his back. 

Yuri turned his head calmly with just a glance over his shoulder. Otabek stood stoic, grecian in form. Statuesque. People with too much money would waste so much of it just to see a face like that. 

“Hello Altin,” he purred softly, “You’re happy to see me.” 

Otabek didn’t say anything, he just handed over his gun by the handle. 

“Mm, not quite what I wanted you to offer me below the waist,” Yuri murmured, turning to take the familiar weapon. He examined it closely, taking into account every centimeter that had been shifted or changed. There was a new tracker in the piece that he couldn’t see, but he could feel the change in weight. They’d buffed out some of the scratches, polished it clean of the blood that had stained it previously. Yuri didn’t like that, but he didn’t mind the addition of three inscribed initials into the base of the handle. 

_ OMA.  _

“It’ll do, for now.” 

Otabek went over to the window, putting distance between them in the expanse of the room. 

When he finally spoke it was almost a dismissal, “That is your personal piece. There are more in your new quarters. You’ll need full gear for your next set of missions.” 

Interest triggered, Yuri stepped forward. Otabek stepped closer to the center of the window. He scoffed, he hadn’t signed up for cat and mouse full time. At least Jean let him pounce before he escaped. 

“I thought you wanted me to be patient,” he mused aloud, “or is giving a gun to the one person who could easily kill you just a cry for help?” 

Otabek hid a wry smirk behind clearing his throat, as if the way that Yuri amused him also confused him. 

“You won’t ever kill me,” he laid out flat like he was revealing a winning hand, “you would be so bored if you did.” 

Yuri rolled his eyes and put his gun in its holster where it belonged. It felt like reconnecting a limb. 

That could have been the end of it if Yuri hadn’t anticipated that he would need more. He needed something to hold Otabek’s attention, an extra ace up his sleeve. He pulled the work blue pack of cigarettes out of his back pocket, thumbing at the lighter that lived alongside the half pack that was left. He’d found them at the back of Jean’s nightstand one morning. Jean was asleep, bare and trusting, and so Yuri had to steal something. It was the least he could do. 

They were gaulosies, old as fuck. Jean had quit a long time ago but he held onto that last pack. It was one of the small mysteries Yuri wanted to solve within the web of them. 

He plucked one of the cigs out of the pack and lit it, the soft crackle the only sound of the room. 

Otabek spoke as he exhaled his first drag, his voice low and haunted as graveyard dirt.

“Where did you get those?” 

“From where they’ve always been,” he answered coyly, muffled where his lips curved around the cigarette, “beside his bed.”

The distance between them was instantly pulled back together, like the tightening of a thread as a stitch closed. Otabek tore the cigarette from his lips and crushed it on the floor beneath his shoe. 

Yuri had to move pretty quickly after that. Otabek should have known better than to go after someone he’d just given a gun to. Maybe he was asking for it. In a flash of movement, he had the gun to Otabek’s temple and a knee between his legs. He had time to blink, time to think he had the upper hand, before he was crushed against the floor. 

His cheek hit the cold marble and his gun flew from his hand. Otabek was on top of him, kneecap pressed into the small of his back as he held him down. His voice was like grated gravel when it brushed Yuri’s ear. 

“What did you do to him?” 

Yuri coughed out the shock, forced his limbs to become still and slack even though his bones were screaming for a fight. 

“You have a lot of questions for me today,” he gritted out slowly. He could see the cigarette he’d just been smoking on the floor in his line of sight, his gun lying a few feet away. “I didn’t think you would mind, I just wanted a little taste.” 

The smack of his head against the cool ground felt like a kiss. Otabek had a grip in his hair, and his voice gave away all of his secrets. It was the first time Yuri had seen the man show genuine emotion. All it had taken was the lighting of a cigarette. The gun at the temple and floor play were after effects.

“He doesn’t belong to you,” Otabek whispered, and maybe it was the softness of it that was the most frightening, “and you both belong to me.” 

At least they could agree on one thing. 

There was no threat or warning, Otabek simply got up and let him scramble away. Maybe it was Yuri who was the spider after all.

Without any chance of getting an answer for questions he didn’t know how to ask, he retreated back to Jean’s bed. He cleaned his gun once, twice, and put it away. He buried himself in the sheets and got drunk on the faint scent. Jean lingered even when he was gone, and Otabek’s words rang in Yuri’s head. 

_ You both belong to me.  _

There was no escape from any of it, from either of them. He was in too deep. It was so much easier to kill people than to admit you might care for them. At least, Yuri cared that they cared. 

If he’d meant nothing to Otabek, he wouldn’t have been allowed to put a gun to his head and get away with it. His blood and brain matter could have been splattered against the marble floor next to the cigarette, easily.

As long as he was alive, he was worth something. 

When Otabek had found him on that rooftop in Barcelona, he’d known him immediately. He’d known his hunger and his pride, his need to be the best even when it was the worst thing he could do. 

Yuri had his guns back. He was in the company of the only friends he had ever known. And despite their little spat, he had a mission. It was delivered in a slim file under the door the next morning. 

Jean was still gone when he left early, slipping away before the sun could catch him. As the car drove away and rough terrain bled into paved road, Yuri wondered how long he would be away. He wondered how good he would need to be at doing bad things. 

Most of all, he wondered what Otabek Altin did when he grew tired of the people that he owned. 

The prey hardly ever knew what was happening before that first bite. 

  
  



End file.
